


Nothing's Gone Forever

by TazWren



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bendemption, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Force Ghost Leia Organa, Gen, Grief/Mourning, In Memory of Carrie Fisher, Loss of Parent(s), Post-Canon, Reylo - Freeform, SwoloFic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 21:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17373764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TazWren/pseuds/TazWren
Summary: In Memory of Carrie Fisher





	Nothing's Gone Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trish47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trish47/gifts).



> Do you ever lie  
> Awake at night?  
> Just between the dark  
> And the morning light  
> Searching for the things  
> You used to know  
> Looking for the place  
> Where the lost things go
> 
> Do you ever dream  
> Or reminisce?  
> Wondering where to find  
> What you truly miss  
> Well maybe all those things  
> That you love so  
> Are waiting in the place  
> Where the lost things go
> 
> Memories you've shared  
> Gone for good you feared  
> They're all around you still  
> Though they've disappeared  
> Nothing's really left  
> Or lost without a trace  
> Nothing's gone forever  
> Only out of place
> 
> \- 'The Place Where Lost Things Go'  
> Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
> 
> **  
> Trigger Warning: Death and Grief. Don't read if this is a problem  
> **

 

Kylo was trying very hard not to choke Hux, nor push the General's head through the durasteel panels at force. It wasn't an easy task, given the levels of irritation that were being inspired in him. To make matters worse, he could feel the sounds starting to mute around him as the tunnel-effect of the bond came into force, narrowing his senses… to her. After all this time.

Before he lost all sense of time and place, Kylo quickly waved off Hux's newest tirade, infusing his voice with Suggestion to ensure obedience, “Later, General. I have matters to attend to.” Striding out of the audience chambers he was now forced to keep, Kylo made for his private quarters praying that the connection held the while. He could sense her, off to the side, a sense of quiet misery emanating from her. The connection was strong, as strong at it had been on Ahch-To, on Crait, even though he had almost lost hope of ever seeing her again. He kept his face averted, making sure not to turn his head and bring her into his line of sight -  Kylo knew he might not be able to look away.

Kylo. That was another thought that constantly plagued him. Was he even still Kylo Ren? Could he still be? When the scavenger had awakened a part of him that he thought had been sacrificed to Snoke's avarice? He wasn't Ben Solo. He knew that...but, yet...that is who Rey saw. Had seen. Who she had wanted. Could he even _begin_ to reconcile the two?

Kylo slammed into his rooms with a desperate hurry, ensuring the doors were locked behind him before he turned. His first sight of Rey in months and she wasn't even looking at him. She sat, slumped against… a wall? Her head was down, eyes closed and tears were dripping down her face. Before he knew it Kylo had sunk to his knees next to her and was reaching a tentative hand to touch her shoulder. Rey opened her eyes and turned to him, a look that was both relief as well as trepidation crossing her face.

“It's really you!” her voice was broken, a throb of pain running through it, inciting alarm in him.

What was wrong? Was she hurt? Had something happened to her? He tried not to think about how all the things that could happen to her might be the direct result of his… _Hux's_ forces. He was keeping the cur on a tight leash but had been unable to stop incidents of what was being touted as either orders misunderstood or simple oversight. If there was one thing Hux was, it was efficient, so it _had_ to be deliberate. And that meant Kylo had no control over any possible attacks on the Resistance. Despite ordering Hux to stand down.

Bringing himself back to the matter at hand, Kylo gently probed at Rey, attempting to scan her for any physical distress. Thankfully, he found nothing, though when his eyes returned to hers the tears were coming much faster.  

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Kylo gripped her shoulders and peered closely at her, worry starting to claw at him.

“Oh, Ben!” she sobbed, clinging to his hands, shaking her head, “It’s the General.”

It took him a beat to realize that Rey was certainly not shedding tears over Hux, but was instead talking of his mother.

“She’s… it’s been 3 days, she hasn’t woken up.”

He’d never really understood the phrase being hit by a sledgehammer, until that very moment. It was as though he had been thrown into the cold clutch of the vacuum beyond the walls of the dreadnought - all the air sucked out of his lungs, immeasurable pressure behind his eyes, in his chest - he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see.

Kylo - or maybe he was Ben after all? - was only peripherally aware of clutching at Rey as the lifeline she was while he desperately scoured the Force, the galaxy, for his mother’s signature. There, _there_! Even as he zeroed in on her, and faint throb of the skeins of light that had always meant Leia, Princess of Alderaan, the light stuttered, flickered, wavering as though in a strong wind.

“No! NO!” his bellowed as he clawed at the air in an attempt to reach her, hold her, keep her from dissipating. As though sensing her son, Leia’s signature steadied for the duration of a heartbeat, allowing him to bend his energies around hers, hold his mother one last time from a galaxy away.

And then, she was gone.

The wail of a wounded wild animal ripped from his throat, bouncing off the durasteel around them, as sharp and agonized as though it were broken glass and not sound that emanated from him.

No, no, no. Not his mother. NOT his mother!

He couldn’t lose her, not her as well. Not after everything. Even after everything. He had been too late. As always.

Ben couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move. He could only cling to his scavenger as he wept, the Force being kind to him for once and letting them stay connected. He didn’t know if Rey cried, or if she spoke. He barely knew that she held him, his head pressed into her neck as she rocked him, her own tears falling and mixing with his.

Eventually, the storm calmed and there was just a hollow emptiness, a part of him gone forever. Ben lay there, still cradled in Rey’s arms, as he stared with unseeing eyes, the tears slowly dripping.

He felt like he was looking into a kaleidoscope, one which only held images of his mother. Smiling, laughing, arguing, scolding, holding. Young and unlined, older and sorrowful. But he couldn’t see himself there, in those memories, even when he should have been. It was as though he had ripped himself out of reality, with his own hands, and could only observe, from behind a pane of splintered glass. Perhaps it was no more than he deserved.

“No, Ben, no! You don’t deserve that!”

Had he spoken that last thought aloud? He must have if Rey was responding. Not that he had the energy to refute her. It was as though every spark of energy in him had bled out of his body, leaving him a boneless, crumpled heap, his mind a wasteland of desolation.

“Oh, my Ben” a cool hand smoothed the hair back from his brow, stroking down his face to lightly grip his chin, “my baby boy.”

Ben turned, slowly, raising disbelieving eyes to take in the form of… his mother? For that was who he saw, luminous, glowing, and… transparent.

He brought his hand up to clutch at hers where it still held his face, half expecting his fingers to pass right through. They didn’t though, coming to rest instead against a hand that he had not held in many years, far too many years. A broken sob escaped his lips as he looked at the woman who had lived and died believing her son would still come home.

Leia smiled, before leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead, whispering “But you did come home, Ben. You just didn’t know it.”

 

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> ... for Mom ... you are always with me 💕


End file.
